Last month, Tanita Davis shared the details:
Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to join our August poetry challenge!
Here’s the scoop: this month, we’re doing haiku…sonnets. If your response is a baffled “What?” no worries. Basically four 3-line haiku plus a couplet of either 5 or 7 syllables equals the traditional 14 lines you’ll find in a sonnet. If you haven’t written a sonnet, or “little song” in a minute, Folger has a Shakespearean guide, while the Poetry Foundation has the deets on other forms. Are you in? Good! Start today so you can be ready to share August 28th in a blog post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. See you then!
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So, as usual, I got to work right away.
Oh, wait, no.
I didn't.
I checked my planner yesterday and found the note I'd made: "Tanita's August Poetry Challenge — post on Aug. 28th."
Ummm ... okay. So, this morning I got to work.
I don't know if this is haiku, or if it's a haiku sonnet, or if I should've tried to nail down some iambic pentameter (I guess not? Because ... haiku?) Anyway, I just started in on something I've been thinking about a lot lately — the way that, when your kids grow up, they begin drifting in and out of your house in varying patterns. (College, staying with friends, traveling to see the long-distance boyfriend, moving to a new town after getting married, coming home and sleeping under your roof again for a holiday gathering...) As a mom, I have never stopped waking up and asking myself, "Where are my daughters today?"
Here's the haiku sonnet I came up with.
Counting heads
Karen Edmisten
Being a mother,
someone said, is counting heads.
Where is everyone?
Easy when they’re five.
They are all at home, of course.
Yard, kitchen, their room.
Adult kids, new phase.
I wake up, reorient
to each day’s difference.
Who’s under my roof?
Is anyone traveling?
Is everyone safe?
Counting their heads never ends.
I count each head in my heart.
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